Cleveland Clinic http://clevelandclinic.org has joined a multi-center clinical trial aimed at developing a blood test to detect cancer early. The study called “Circulating Cell-free Genome Atlas” (CCGA) is recruiting 10,000 patients in the U.S to build a database for cancer biology.
The observational CCG study will enroll at least 7,000 cancer patients and 3,000 non-cancer individuals to develop models for distinguishing cancer from non-cancer. The Cleveland Clinic Center for Clinical Genomics team and primary investigators Eric Klein MD and Mikkael Sekeres MD will recruit more than 1,000 Cleveland Clinic patients over the age of 20.
“The complex nature of cancer makes it difficult to identify biomarkers to detect early-stage cancer before symptoms appear,” said Dr. Sekeres, Vice Chair for Clinical Research at Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute. “The CCGA study will expand our knowledge about genomic profiles in cancer patients and shed new light on the biology of cancer at its initial stages.”
The study funded by GRAIL Inc. https://grailcom will collect biological samples from donors with a diagnosis of cancer and from donors who do not have a diagnosis of cancer to characterize the population variation in cancer and non-cancer subjects. The research team will use deep sequencing of cell-free nucleic acids in the blood, an emerging biomarker for earlier cancer detection to potentially develop a detailed atlas of cancer genetics.
To participate, subjects will complete a health questionnaire, have a one-time blood draw, and allow the staff to collect information from their medical records for five years. In addition, subjects with cancer will also allow study staff to collect tumor tissue from their biopsy or surgery that would otherwise not be used.
For more information, go to https://goo.gl/d3mwQf or email the CCGA team at CCGAStucy@ccfr.org.